This is the first of
two volumes devoted to the early post-War
collaboration between Clifford Curzon
and the Budapest Quartet. The sides
were recorded in the airless and constricted
auditorium at the Library of Congress,
a pre-condition of the quartet’s using
the Stradivari violins being that they
had to remain in situ. So the acoustic
counts against the performers, being
cramped and imparting an acidic tone
especially to the fiddles of Roisman
and Gorodetzky. That, however, is an
inevitable corollary of the performances
that were first issued on Columbia LPs
and are here transferred from just such
copies. I can’t imagine the recording
limitations will unduly concern admirers
of either the pianist or the quartet,
who were long to remain favoured residents
at the Library of Congress (numerous
releases on Bridge have documented a
number of those performances).
Their Schumann was
the earlier to be recorded, in April
1951. The cramped and acidic tone especially
relates to this performance; a good
one, as well, though by no means a great
one. I prefer the recording made in
December 1953 at the same location with
Arthur Balsam as pianist which tends,
live as it is, to have a greater sense
of adrenalin and commitment. There’s
something just a shade devitalised about
the Columbia first movement, for all
the finely etched cello line and Curzon’s
leonine playing. The stronger accents
and more pressing individualism of the
concert performance tend to show up
the studio recording. Things here are
rather more lateral, whereas the funereal
march in concert is more sharply grained.
The Scherzo sounds well in both performances
but in the studio fortes are harsh and
the timbre generally is inclined to
be chilly; the finale is taken at the
same tempo on both occasions and it’s
properly buoyant.
Coupled with the Schumann
is Brahms’ A major. We can hear some
surface noise of course from the LP
transfer but not so much that enjoyment
is impaired. Here the Budapest occasionally
gives in to its besetting sin, one of
over nuanced phrasing (manicured if
you’re unsympathetic). Though the opening
is pliant and expressive, and though
Curzon is lyrical, full of power and
excellent, if one turns to the much
earlier 1932 HMV recording that the
Busch Quartet made with Rudolf Serkin
we find a different type of Brahmsian
aesthetic. The Busch are more urgent,
ardent and taut – their phrasing is
manlier, for what of a better word,
less the curvaceous sheen of the Russians,
heavier of accents, more directional.
Gains in the later recording are obviously
those of textual clarity – you really
can hear inner parts that were submerged
in the rougher hewn Busch performance.
I enjoyed the lullaby like feel imparted
to the slow movement by the Budapest
– in contradistinction the Busch are
tougher, though still sensitive, less
nocturnal, and less reliant on explicit
contrasts. The Budapest take a rather
grand seigniorial approach to the Scherzo
– there’s something a touch raffiné
about it by the side of the more toughly
concentrated Busch. Curzon is certainly
more elegant than Serkin in the finale
– but the Budapest makes this sound
more Schubertian than ideally it should
and overall I prefer the tensile grip
the Busch/Serkin team impart. Their
sound world sounds altogether more authentic
for all that Curzon was a famously successful
Brahmsian and the Budapest was long
associated with the repertoire.
As I said sound constraints
are inherent and for all my strictures
this recording has been absent from
the catalogues for too long. Tully Potter’s
notes are well judged and the next brace
of performances by these forces – Dvořák
and Brahms’ Op.34 – can’t be far behind.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Tony
Haywood
Clifford Curzon (piano) 
